Print full filename in tabs when using terminal Vim

Question

I use Vim 8.0 (homebrew) from iTerm 3.

How do I use full filenames instead of these abominations that Vim seems to print by default?

Some context as filenames:

• sidebar.php
• sponsors.php
• donate.php
• sort-bar.php
• single-product.php
• archive-product.php
• product-box.php
• templates.js
• card-page.php

So yeah, these serve basically no value. I can't guess which "uct.php" is what I want. How do I make Vim print the full filenames (leave folders and path out)?

I researched before asking the question, and none of the answers provided in these worked for me: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20256380/show-filename-only-in-tabs-terminal-vim https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2468939/how-to-let-tab-display-only-file-name-rather-than-the-full-path-in-vim

Answer 1

For the terminal, you want to check the 'tabline' option. For the gui version, check the 'guitablabel' setting. Since you seem to be using a terminal vim, here is what I would do:

The help page for 'tabline' the help already mentions how to set it, so follow the link setting-tabline and copy the function found there:

  function MyTabLine()
      let s = ''
      for i in range(tabpagenr('$'))
        " select the highlighting
        if i + 1 == tabpagenr()
          let s .= '%#TabLineSel#'
        else
          let s .= '%#TabLine#'
        endif

        " set the tab page number (for mouse clicks)
        let s .= '%' . (i + 1) . 'T'

        " the label is made by MyTabLabel()
        let s .= ' %{MyTabLabel(' . (i + 1) . ')} '
      endfor

      " after the last tab fill with TabLineFill and reset tab page nr
      let s .= '%#TabLineFill#%T'

      " right-align the label to close the current tab page
      if tabpagenr('$') > 1
        let s .= '%=%#TabLine#%999Xclose'
      endif

      return s
    endfunction

    function MyTabLabel(n)
      let buflist = tabpagebuflist(a:n)
      let winnr = tabpagewinnr(a:n)
      return bufname(buflist[winnr - 1])
    endfunction

    :set tabline=%!MyTabLine()

Now, since you want to have the fullname, make the second last line of the MyTabLabel() function this:

return fnamemodify(bufname(buflist[winnr - 1]), ':t')

or if you want to see the whole path:

return fnamemodify(bufname(buflist[winnr - 1]), ':p')

Read more about the fnamemodify() function and the various arguments it accepts at filename-modifiers